Departament d’Idiomes

In Enric Borràs Secondary School, teaching the English language is not only an academic priority but also a pleasure. All the English Department staff contributes to boost the knowledge of this foreign language following different methodologies and applying the compulsory curriculum on key competences (competències bàsiques). 

The materials used for ESO are Workbooks which follow the curriculum on key competences and in Batxillerat, the corresponding coursebooks. Supplementary photocopies are also passed to reinforce and broaden the students’ different skills. This traditional methodology is complemented with more innovative ones, such as Gamification, Content-based, Task-based, and Participatory Approaches, Communicative Language Teaching,  Learning Strategy Training, Cooperative Learning, and Multiple Intelligences. Besides, ICT tools are implemented on a daily basis. Examples of these are Classroom, Google Drive,  Google Forms, Youtube videos, infographic makers, Instagram, Tik Tok, Quizlet, Socrative, Mindmeister, Kahoot, and so on and so forth.

Extensive and Intensive Reading are fundamentally the reading skills practised in our school. For us, the benefits of reading are obviously multiple, and a way to stimulate and encourage our students is to provide them with appealing materials and activities: graded readers, “real books”, news, comics, and so on and so forth.

However, it must be taken into account that all the skills, not only reading, but speaking, listening, and writing need to be implemented in a synergistic way to produce enhanced results.

The English Department actively participates in the different workshops and activities that are organised by the School’s Festivals Commission along the course, which are: Castaween, Christmas, Carnival, the International Women’s Day and Saint George’s Day.

The English Day is an event which the English Department fully organises with the valuable support of those teachers who have at least a B1 English level on a practical basis. The different workshops that are designed in this wonderful celebration (to be planned regarding the School Calendar) are: Irish Dance, Harry Potter Escape Room, Harry Potter magic wand making, The cricket games, Rugby, Pancake Making, Karaoke, Films in the original version, St Patrick’s Scrapbook, London Gymkhana, Party and Co, Board games and Funny Culture Quizzes.

To learn a foreign language it is absolutely necessary to implement practical activities, for this reason, English is also a learning tool when applying Content and Language Integrated Learning in these subjects: Technology, Biology, and Physics, Experimental Sciences, History, Social Sciences, Economy and Entrepreneurship. 

The participation in Erasmus + projects is an objective to be achieved in the 2020-22 courses. A lot of effort has been made to achieve this goal by designing a school project, MULTICULTURALISM AND INCLUSIVENESS (with Portugal, Romania, and Turkey as collaborators), and participating in other school projects: THE VOICES OF TEENAGERS (Turkey), EUROPEAN STUDENTS-RESPONSIBLE, MOTIVATED, EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT AND USEFUL (Romania), SMALL STEPS – BIG CHANGES (Poland) and TASTES ACROSS LIFE (Turkey). Furthermore, an eTwinning project has been created partly to become the virtual tool for the Erasmus+ program, due to the fact that both physical and virtual mobilities are paramount for a more pragmatic and efficient scope in the language learning process.

Last but not least, we bear in mind our students’ necessities. That is why reinforcement of the different language skills and B1+B2 preparatory classes are carried out in extracurricular classes. To select those students who need review and reinforcement, the English Department staff is coordinated to take into account the student’s several characteristics: behaviour, motivation, commitment and a real need to improve the language skills. To select B1/B2 students, in turn, an exam is passed to test the students’ level. Those who are chosen are also registered for the EOI exam straight in our school.